In a final attempt to pass Obamacare, it appears that Democrats will resort to legislative obfuscation to convince a handful of House Democrats they’re not committing political suicide by voting for it.

Because the House and the Senate passed different healthcare reform bills, it was necessary to meld the two in a conference committee and vote again in both houses on the revised bill. But faced with solid Republican opposition in the Senate, when Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s old seat in Massachusetts, and Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority, that option went out the window.

That meant the Democrat majority in the House had to pass the Senate bill without changes to give President Obama a bill he could sign into law. Because the Senate bill contained different language on abortion and numerous other onerous provisions House Democrats found unacceptable, however, Nancy Pelosi didn’t have the votes to pass it in the House.

Now, in a last-ditch effort to get those votes, Pelosi plans to use a maneuver dreamed up by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter of New York. The “Slaughter solution,” would allow House members to vote on a new bill with changes to the Senate's that includes language stating that the Senate bill was “deemed passed.” A reconciliation measure then could to go forward on the original Senate bill without a separate roll call vote on it in the House.

The underlying premise for this legislative sleight of hand is that vulnerable Democrats could vote for Obamacare but claim in their reelection campaigns that they never voted for any of the highly unpopular provisions of the Senate bill. They have to count on the Senate stripping them out in reconciliation, but with Obamacare passed into law, they’re told, a reenergized Democrat base will turn out for them in November to counter the anti-Democrat anger that the whole healthcare-reform debate has produced.

Whether or not Democrats can successfully use this ruse to pass Obamacare, I have no idea. It sounds unorthodox to say the least, but who knows what parliamentary skullduggery is possible in Congress these days?

Even if it’s possible, will at least five House Democrats who previously voted no on the House healthcare reform bill buy all this and vote yes on a new bill? Can they possibly believe that becoming a co-conspirator in a scheme to subvert the legislative process will improve their electoral chances in November?

Assuming Speaker Pelosi finds the fearless five, Obamacare passes, and the Democrat base is reenergized, it will super-energize Republicans and Independents who oppose Obamacare to turn out in droves in November. The Slaughter solution will become the Slaughter-House suicide.

As Democratic pollsters By Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen wrote in their March 12 Washington Post op-ed, If Democrats ignore health-care polls, midterms will be costly, “Their blind persistence in the face of reality threatens to turn this political march of folly into an electoral rout in November.” And persist they have.

Whether the outcome, what the Democrats' victory-at-any-cost strategy proves is that it has never been just about healthcare. If it were, Democrats could have found common ground with Republicans and passed a bipartisan bill Americans would have embraced. Instead, they sought a partisan solution that would greatly expand the role of government and, they believe, the power of Democrats.

One misstep after another, not the least of which was President Obama’s deferral to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to hammer out the details of healthcare reform, however, have led Democrats to where then now stand--at the point of no return.

If Obamacare does go down because Pelosi can’t find 216 votes in the House, voters will punish Democrats in November for wasting so much time and effort on it and failing to adequately address jobs and the economy.

If it passes, voters will punish Democrats even worse. It’s bad enough when the party in power pursues policies the majority of Americans oppose. It’s much worse when they do it with arrogance and obfuscation.

Once passed, Obamacare can’t easily be repealed. It would take a Republican President and a Republican Congress with a filibuster-proof Senate to do that. Even when that time comes, as it well may in 2012, it would be no easy task. But it can be modified piece by piece, over time, becoming something quite different, reducing government control and restoring free-market principles to it; and that, most likely, would be its fate.

In the meantime, it would serve as a continuing reminder to Americans what Democrats did when voters give them too much power. It will take a long time and a different Democrat Party to regain the people’s trust. Republicans, if they can avoid making the same mistakes, and, ultimately, the American people, will be the beneficiaries.